Devin
1. The mood of this image is somber and sad. The subject, the girl, is one of the only parts of the image that is not very dim, isolating her. It looks as if she is upset about something that just happened to her and she went outside of her house to think about it. Technically it was done well, the subject is well framed, although the concrete below the girl does lead the viewer's eyes off the frame and away from the subject somewhat. A lower aperture would have helped isolate the girl more, but I think that by having the door in focus it gives more context and also allows you to see how dreary her surroundings are. All of the dark, dirty concrete and old wood reinforces the feeling that the girl is very beat down and unhappy where she is. Also, all the cold, emotionless matter around her serves to emphasis how human she is and makes her more relatable to the viewer. By taking the picture near the railing and on the same level as the girl it gives the viewer the sense that they are there, but not really involved, as if they were just walking by and saw the girl. The railing also separates the viewer from the girl which could be why the girl is upset in the first place, she feels isolated from all the people around her and trapped by some unknown force.
2. This image has a very strong emphasis on the subjects, the woman and the boy she is holding. By blurring the background slightly the photographer isolated the subjects, while retaining some context. The woman and the boy are also isolated from the background because they are the only people in the image, yet they also somewhat fit. Both the background and the people both look very worn down, as if they have been through a lot. The woman's skin is as worn down and dirty as the ground she is standing on. The mood the image conveys is one of desolation and hardship. The texture of the skin of the people and the way they contrast with everything else in the frame really make it seem that the people are alone in their lives and just trying to stay alive. Yet even while there is such hardship in this image, one can see a bond between the woman and the child. She is holding the young boy close to herself, and it sometimes is hard to find where one ends and the other begins. This is really emphasized by the negative space all around them both that pushes them together.
3. In this image the first thing the viewer notices is the three men walking across the street. The three men are separated by the yellow lines on the street, isolating them from each other. The men way the men look also isolate them from each other, the man on the right has a very straight posture and looks like he is trying to walk across the street very quickly. The other two men are slouching and hanging behind. They almost look drunk, while the other man looks like he is a businessman rushing to his job. The lines that isolate the men, however, do lead the eye away from them at the same time. The road and the lines formed by the buildings on each side of the road draw the eye towards the horizon and away from the subject. This could have been done intentionally to show the viewer that no matter how different we are, businessmen or drunks, we are all together in this huge world. That you cant very much detail on the men since they are between the photographer in the sun does support this idea somewhat since it ties the men closer together. The image could have been cropped better to remove the streetlight and sign on the righthand side, but the vignette does help keep the eye on the frame.
4.The most striking part of the image is the woman's smile. Most images that I have seen of the elderly made them look worn out and sad, but in this image the woman looks genuinely happy, as if she had just been told something amusing by somebody. Her eyes sort of draw the viewer's eyes off the frame, something that a vignette could have helped, but other than that it is technically done nicely. The contrast in the image brings out the texture of the woman's skin, which in turn brings out her smile. The image is well balanced, her gaze which leads the eye to the left somewhat offset by her face being lighter on the right. The lighting also brings out the darkness under her eyes, as well as her wrinkles which do make her worn out, but not defeated by life. She looks as if she has lived a long and happy life and is happy where she is now. This creates a sense of happiness and optimism in the image, if this woman who looks as if she has been through so much in her life is still happy, why shouldn't we be happy as well?
5.This image make very good use of negative space, by using all of the space above the dead man on the table to really emphasis what is happening here. That space leaves the picture feel uncompleted, as if something should be taking up that space, like the man standing up. The sense of something being missing creates a feeling of loss, which is what the man looking at the dead body must feel. The photographer, who I assume is the man in the picture, or at least represents him, was a gay man, and the photo was taken during an epidemic of aids in the gay community. This connects the photographer to the man on the table, not only since they are both human, but since, assuming that the man on the table was gay too, they both went through many of the same hardships, since the photo was taken at a time of great hostility towards gay men. The despair that the man must have felt after losing somebody that may have been close to him is emphasized by the clothing he is wearing, all black. That this was a double exposure with the dead body not really in front of the man, assuming that man was in the room whose floor can be seen at the bottom and the body wasn't or vice-versa, makes the man seem even deeper in thought. The man's mind was not with his body.
1. The mood of this image is somber and sad. The subject, the girl, is one of the only parts of the image that is not very dim, isolating her. It looks as if she is upset about something that just happened to her and she went outside of her house to think about it. Technically it was done well, the subject is well framed, although the concrete below the girl does lead the viewer's eyes off the frame and away from the subject somewhat. A lower aperture would have helped isolate the girl more, but I think that by having the door in focus it gives more context and also allows you to see how dreary her surroundings are. All of the dark, dirty concrete and old wood reinforces the feeling that the girl is very beat down and unhappy where she is. Also, all the cold, emotionless matter around her serves to emphasis how human she is and makes her more relatable to the viewer. By taking the picture near the railing and on the same level as the girl it gives the viewer the sense that they are there, but not really involved, as if they were just walking by and saw the girl. The railing also separates the viewer from the girl which could be why the girl is upset in the first place, she feels isolated from all the people around her and trapped by some unknown force.
2. This image has a very strong emphasis on the subjects, the woman and the boy she is holding. By blurring the background slightly the photographer isolated the subjects, while retaining some context. The woman and the boy are also isolated from the background because they are the only people in the image, yet they also somewhat fit. Both the background and the people both look very worn down, as if they have been through a lot. The woman's skin is as worn down and dirty as the ground she is standing on. The mood the image conveys is one of desolation and hardship. The texture of the skin of the people and the way they contrast with everything else in the frame really make it seem that the people are alone in their lives and just trying to stay alive. Yet even while there is such hardship in this image, one can see a bond between the woman and the child. She is holding the young boy close to herself, and it sometimes is hard to find where one ends and the other begins. This is really emphasized by the negative space all around them both that pushes them together.
3. In this image the first thing the viewer notices is the three men walking across the street. The three men are separated by the yellow lines on the street, isolating them from each other. The men way the men look also isolate them from each other, the man on the right has a very straight posture and looks like he is trying to walk across the street very quickly. The other two men are slouching and hanging behind. They almost look drunk, while the other man looks like he is a businessman rushing to his job. The lines that isolate the men, however, do lead the eye away from them at the same time. The road and the lines formed by the buildings on each side of the road draw the eye towards the horizon and away from the subject. This could have been done intentionally to show the viewer that no matter how different we are, businessmen or drunks, we are all together in this huge world. That you cant very much detail on the men since they are between the photographer in the sun does support this idea somewhat since it ties the men closer together. The image could have been cropped better to remove the streetlight and sign on the righthand side, but the vignette does help keep the eye on the frame.
4.The most striking part of the image is the woman's smile. Most images that I have seen of the elderly made them look worn out and sad, but in this image the woman looks genuinely happy, as if she had just been told something amusing by somebody. Her eyes sort of draw the viewer's eyes off the frame, something that a vignette could have helped, but other than that it is technically done nicely. The contrast in the image brings out the texture of the woman's skin, which in turn brings out her smile. The image is well balanced, her gaze which leads the eye to the left somewhat offset by her face being lighter on the right. The lighting also brings out the darkness under her eyes, as well as her wrinkles which do make her worn out, but not defeated by life. She looks as if she has lived a long and happy life and is happy where she is now. This creates a sense of happiness and optimism in the image, if this woman who looks as if she has been through so much in her life is still happy, why shouldn't we be happy as well?
5.This image make very good use of negative space, by using all of the space above the dead man on the table to really emphasis what is happening here. That space leaves the picture feel uncompleted, as if something should be taking up that space, like the man standing up. The sense of something being missing creates a feeling of loss, which is what the man looking at the dead body must feel. The photographer, who I assume is the man in the picture, or at least represents him, was a gay man, and the photo was taken during an epidemic of aids in the gay community. This connects the photographer to the man on the table, not only since they are both human, but since, assuming that the man on the table was gay too, they both went through many of the same hardships, since the photo was taken at a time of great hostility towards gay men. The despair that the man must have felt after losing somebody that may have been close to him is emphasized by the clothing he is wearing, all black. That this was a double exposure with the dead body not really in front of the man, assuming that man was in the room whose floor can be seen at the bottom and the body wasn't or vice-versa, makes the man seem even deeper in thought. The man's mind was not with his body.